


Start All Over

by MadameReveuse



Category: Children of the Lamp - P. B. Kerr
Genre: ALL THE RELATIONSHIPS - Freeform, Mild slash, Minor Violence, Multi, PTSD depiction, all of them - Freeform, general adventure and asskicking with a social message, if you are asking yourself if this fic is really named after a song by Miley Cyrus the answer is yes, spoilers for all seven books, transferred from ff.net for your convenience
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-09 07:51:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3241967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameReveuse/pseuds/MadameReveuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally Philippa had wanted to leave the past behind. But then some shady djinndividuals attack her and she is saved by...Rudyard Teer?! As she turns to uncle Nimrod for guidance, Philippa has to figure: apparently djinn society is going through a lot of changes since she last visited...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> For loddenschatz, who gifted me a fic first. Behold! My retort is swift!  
> Starting off with a mysterious prologue that no one can make sense of.

“So you won’t cooperate?”  
“Sorry, boy. I’m afraid it isn’t that easy.”  
Somewhere in a remote corner of the world, in a spacious room with heavy stone walls and an almost unbreakable iron door, a boy and a woman stood facing each other. The room was large, but dark and damp; it looked somewhat like a dungeon. The woman was dark-haired, pale and very tall, her figure that of a woman athlete. The boy, also dark-haired and somewhere within his teenage years, sported the expression of someone who had expected to come out on top of a situation, only to find he really wasn’t. The woman was standing between him and the door, blocking his way out.  
The boy said: “I went through all this trouble tracking you down…”  
“And I couldn’t care less if I tried” the woman interrupted him coolly. Did I mention the large, black-bladed longsword she was holding casually in one hand, pointed at his throat?  
“Look, honey, I don’t help djinn. Especially not little dipshits like you. And I’ve no intention to be in on that crazy stupid plan of yours. Did you honestly think your measly djinn powers would be enough to bind me? Thinking is not your thing, is it?”  
“They told me you were bound to this place…”  
“Bound, yes, but not powerless. This is my lair. You have walked in here like a stupid little fly into a spider’s web and tried to attack me. And I’m going to squash you against the wall like the weak little fly you are.”  
“I will be stronger” he said. “As soon as I have the staff…”  
“You will be nothing” she mocked, smiling cruelly. “Right now, I have half a mind to wipe the floor with you before I kill you, little bastard. Or maybe bind you to me and take you as a slave. I could use a djinn slave. Maybe a less annoying one, though.”  
He clenched his teeth, but said nothing.  
“Now humor me” she said. “What was it you wanted to do again, when your batshit plan comes together?”  
“I don’t have to tell you that.”  
She prodded him once, very lightly, with the sword. “This is a demon sword, honey. Also this room is djinnproof, and the door is locked. I’m inclined to say you’re wrong. You have to do whatever I say.”  
He rolled his eyes and groaned, sounding more exasperated than afraid. “I’m going to look for my father” he answered her question.  
Suddenly, the woman’s arrogant smirk fell, and she let out a little gasp.  
“Iblis” she whispered. Her sword-free hand went up to her chest and clutched a golden locket that was hanging there, in a weird contrast to the rest of her worn-out biker outfit.  
“Yes, Iblis” he smirked triumphantly, mistaking the expression on her face for fear.  
The woman strode over to the door and threw it open.  
“Leave.”  
“Wh…what?”  
“You heard me. Leave. There’s the door.” She gestured there with her sword.  
“You’re not killing me?”  
“Go away.”  
He hurried to the door to freedom as fast as he could without running, but in the door he turned around again.  
“You know that that’s pretty stupid, right?” he asked. “You know that I’ll return to you as soon as I have the staff.”  
She smirked. “Let’s see about that.”  
“You think I’m not gonna make it? Well, I will. I’ll find the thing. I have friends now, powerful friends, that’ll help me. And as soon as I have found my father…”  
“Try China” she interrupted.  
“What?”  
“You’re looking for your father? Try looking in China.”  
The boy rolled his eyes again. “That’s a pretty large country, China. Any more specific?”  
The woman bit her lip, looking insecure all of a sudden, probably thinking about how much she should tell him. Then her hand snuck up to the golden locket again.  
“Xian” she said. “Try there. And hurry. Or else the only thing you might find is your father’s cold corpse.”  
“Was that a threat?”  
“No. That was a prediction. Just…just fucking hurry up, okay?”

As the boy’s hurried footsteps died away in the distance, the woman lowered her sword, stowed it away in a sheath on her belt and said to herself: “Let’s see if that decision won’t come back around to bite me in the ass…”  
Then she closed the dungeon door again, sat down with her back to it and buried her face in her hands. And nobody heard her whisper: “Oh Iblis…Rudyard…I pray to god he finds you…”


	2. Phantasmagoria

Philippa Gaunt had left her past behind. She was living in the here and now, and she was happy.  
Once, a mere year ago, she and her brother had been djinn. For her, it felt like an eternity ago that she had possessed the power to fulfill wishes or turn people into animals. These powers had been a huge responsibility, and she didn’t miss that one bit. It was pretty exhausting for a developing teen to have to repeatedly save the world, be threatened by villains, watch your family break apart, then get fixed, and as soon as everything looked up again, the next adventure was in store... Granted, she and her brother John hadn’t had a completely awful time. Actually they had learned a lot, made friends, met interesting people, seen a lot of foreign places and occasionally had lots of fun. Sometimes, Philippa felt a bit bored with her life as it was now, and also much more mature than her “ordinary” friends, but all in all she had no regrets about sacrificing her djinn powers for the good of the world the year before, and she knew that neither had John.   
She was living in the here and now. She was happy.   
Philippa hummed a song to herself as she closed her diary. Writing a diary was a habit she had acquired when she had been trapped in Iravotum, and to the present day she loved continuing it. Sometimes she thought about sharing the stories in her diary with other people. She could pretend like it was something she had made up, that would be fun, wouldn’t it...? People would think she had the most vivid imagination.   
Alright, she had finished her homework, written her diary, it was three p.m. ...time to visit Isobel.  
Philippa left her room and went over into John’s. “Hey, John, I’m heading over to Isobel’s, are you coming?”  
“Naah, I’m meeting up with Vi later.”  
Over the last year, Philippa and John had grown apart a bit. They had never been the stereotypical do-everything-together sort of twins, but they had still been mostly together due to their adventures with their uncle Nimrod. Now that there were no adventures anymore, and visiting Uncle Nimrod had become a rare event, they had developed in different directions – as is often the case with people maturing. Also, John lately spent most of his time with his new girlfriend.   
Violet was a nice girl who had started attending their school after the summer break. Her short hair was dyed purple, which went nicely with her name and had caught John’s immediate attention as she first entered their classroom. As the teacher introduced her to the class, she had looked over to where John was staring at her and, Philippa reminisced, almost drooling on his shirt, and given him a winning smile. Three weeks later, they had started going out.  
Philippa said goodbye to her brother and went out into the late fall afternoon. It was pretty cold, maybe it would snow soon. But Philippa wasn’t as conscious of the cold as she had been when she had still had her djinn powers. That was another upside to the new situation.  
She took the subway to where her friend Isobel lived. Philippa was glad that she was now able to just hang out with her school friends in her free time, completely without worries. She liked maintaining friendships, and had always felt a tiny sting of conscience when going on another adventure and neglecting school and her mundane friends. It was nice just meeting up with another girl, leafing through magazines, listening to music and chatting about school and the boys at school.   
When she left, it was already dark and even colder. She huddled up in her coat and scarf and went looking for a taxi or the next subway station. The wind was cold, and New York wasn’t that nice of a city at night. Philippa remembered that when two guys catcalled her and another one gave wolf-whistles as she passed.   
Philippa sighed. Some guys...  
She walked further along the street, until she noticed she was being followed.   
She turned her head a bit and saw four young men, the catcallers among them. They kept a leisurely but steady pace, absolutely sure that they would catch up with her in the end. Philippa walked faster. Maybe it was just a coincidence...maybe they weren’t following her at all...  
As she took a few random turns and they were still behind her, she dismissed the possibility of coincidence. Damn. She fumbled around in her handbag, wishing a can of pepper spray would magically appear there. Situations like that were the downsides of having no djinn powers.  
She didn’t have pepper spray, but she found a small can of deodorant. Well, spraying that into someone’s eyes was bound to hurt too, wasn’t it?   
Suddenly she could see two more men coming out of an alley in front of her. Oh no. She had not just been followed, she had been chased. And unfortunately this was a quiet neighborhood, and there was nobody else on the street. Nobody she could call out for help.   
Philippa gathered up her courage, gripped her little bottle of deodorant tight and whirled around. She had withstood catastrophes, cultists and insane Ifrit. She could handle a few misguided boys out on the prowl, djinn powers or no. Nonetheless she wished that John was there.  
“Could you please leave me alone” she said in a steady voice that sounded braver than she felt.  
She expected one of the men to smirk and say something like “I love women who got fire” or “Learn to take a compliment, sweetheart”, but none of them smirked, and one hissed: “Die, abomination”.   
That’s when Philippa knew she was in serious trouble.  
She cast wild looks between the men, who now started circling her. One of them, the one who had hissed at her, suddenly had a knife in his hand, ready to lunge.  
“PHANTASMAGORIA!” someone yelled.  
Knife guy made a surprised sound as he fell down on the sidewalk, which was still slightly wet from this afternoon’s rain. He lost consciousness as soon as he hit the asphalt, his eyes turning upwards and then closing. There was a faint, sulfuric smell in the air. Djinn powers, Philippa thought wildly. Someone’s using djinn powers. Then PHANTASMAGORIA had been a focus word, but none she had ever heard before.  
Philippa’s other attackers were as surprised as she was. They looked around; apparently they had not expected resistance. “They said the girl had no powers” someone muttered.  
“That wasn’t her” a voice, the one that had yelled out before, said. “Over here, dingbats.”  
It was a voice Philippa knew, a voice from the past. One she had thought she never had to hear again.  
Out of an alley stepped...Rudyard Teer?! He was carrying a flashlight.   
“Why don’t you leave the lady alone, huh?” he said. “This guy” he gave the fallen one a prod with his boot, “has learned already what happens to those who mess with me. Want another lesson, anyone? Volunteers?”  
Suddenly, someone grabbed a fistful of Philippa’s hair from behind and pulled her back. “Piss off, snake boy, or the girl gets it” she could hear someone growling near her ear.  
“Maybe” Rudyard said, smirking, “Maybe you’d really be faster than me, and the girl would get it. Too bad. But then your trouble would only be starting.” He flicked on the flashlight and pointed it into several of the surrounding alleyways, where everyone could now see shady figures peeling out of the darkness. “I’d also like to direct your attention to the rooftops” Rudyard said and pointed up. His flashlight made even more silhouettes up on the roofs come into view. Philippa tried to count them, but there were too many and the light went by too fast.   
“We’ve got you surrounded” Rudyard said snidely. “Did you really think I would be stupid enough to come here by myself? You’re outnumbered, see, so if I were you, I would let go of the lady and run for it. Run back to your bosses and tell them who they’ll be going up against. Tell them we’ll be watching. Got that?”  
The ambushers looked at each other and sped away, leaving the fallen one behind. Leaving Philippa alone to deal with Rudyard saving her life.  
“You...you saved me” she stuttered.  
“Yeah. You alright, Miss Philippa?” he asked, as if it was nothing to him, as if he went around saving her every day. “Not gonna faint or something, are you?”  
“I don’t faint” Philippa said. “I’ve been through worse situations. A lot of those at the hands of you and your father... anyway, thanks for just now.”  
“No big deal” Rudyard said and turned to leave.   
“Wait! You can’t just go away now! I have about a million questions!”  
Rudyard turned around again. “What?”  
“Why? Who were these people? And who are all these people with you? And weren’t you supposed to be trapped in a jade armor?”  
Another two guys stepped up besides Rudyard. Philippa recognized some of those who had been on the rooftops earlier. One of them (Philippa flinched horribly because she mistook him for Iblis, until she saw that he was younger and his hair was too dark) laid a hand on Rudyard’s shoulder and addressed her with: “Those were actually just four questions. And we’re afraid we can’t answer any of them.”  
“Oh come on, now” Philippa said. “This is all too weird. I have a right to be in the know. Who are you, anyway, Iblis junior?”  
Rudyard shook him off and said: “This is Odair, my older brother. The other guy is Jared, my other brother. Up on the roofs are Charlie, also my brother, and Johnathon, my...well, you can guess...”  
“Oh, don’t tell me: is he your brother?” Philippa guessed wryly. “Are all sons of Iblis on the street tonight? What are you doing here?”  
“Well, that’s what we can’t tell you, Miss Philippa. We were told that it’s best for you to not know too much.” Rudyard now turned to his brothers. “What are we doing with garbage butt here?” he asked, pointing at the man he had taken out with his djinn powers.  
“Is he...?” Philippa asked.  
“Sleeping” Rudyard answered curtly. “Do we just leave him?”  
Odair Teer thoughtfully scratched his head. “No, that would be a waste. Mr. Uppity Marid said we need information...”  
“But do you think he would condone our way of getting information?” the one named Jared asked.  
“Eh, who cares. We’ll just run him by dad. I mean, do you think dad would care...?”  
“Right now? Absolutely.” That was Rudyard again.   
“Anyway, we take him with. Who knows, maybe he wants to tell us stuff. There have been stranger things happening” Odair decided. He mumbled something – probably his focus word – and watched as the unconscious man – no, djinn, obviously – dissolved into smoke, which poured into a bottle in Jared’s hand. “And you go home now, miss” he said to Philippa. “Go home and, please, try to forget this ever happened.”  
Philippa was in no mind to just blindly obey that, but the Teer brothers were all staring at her, and there were other eyes hidden in the shadows, and she was trembling from the cold and the shock that was only coming slowly, and this was all rather intimidating, so she hurried home...but with no intention of forgetting anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! So what's Philippa going to do now? What the hell were Rudyard and his brothers even doing? And who were the shady attacker people? And what bloody maniac names his son Odair? That and other interesting stuff in the chapters to follow!


	3. Uncle Nimrod's business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter, in which not much happens. Philippa talks to people. Non-specific weird things happen at Nimrod’s place. Other non-specific weird things happen with the spell check in Microsoft Word. Huh.  
> If you like the plot so far, please keep reading and maybe leave a review! That would delight me very much! Thank you in advance!

After immediately telling John what she had been through that night, Philippa hadn’t found much sleep. The many questions she still had had kept her busy and awake. Now, in the morning, she intended to call the person who could most surely help her clear things up: Uncle Nimrod.  
In the last few months, the twins had rarely seen or even talked to their uncle. That was partially due to the fact that John and Philippa had wished to be further undisturbed by events in the djinn society – since they had no more djinn powers and just wanted to go on leading normal, mundane lives. Of course that didn’t mean they wanted no more contact to their uncle. But Nimrod had been, according to their mother, very busy in the recent time. With what, they did not know. They only knew that Nimrod very rarely had time for a lengthy talk. It was all a bit strange, and Philippa knew that her mother was a bit worried, especially as she had received the news that Nimrod was slowly losing his powers.  
Anyway, Philippa had been attacked – by djinn – and if her uncle didn’t have an explanation, no one would.  
Nimrod answered the phone after the third ring. “Who is that?” He sounded…cautious. Had something happened?  
“Uncle Nimrod, it’s Philippa.”  
“Is it? My dear niece, what a nice surprise! How are you?”  
“Fine so far, uncle, I just…listen, I got attacked last night.”  
“Oh…yes…I’ve heard of that.”  
“Have you now? From whom?”  
“Did they…did anyone harm you?” Nimrod asked, ignoring Philippa’s question.  
“No, I’m fine. But…uncle, they were djinn. I was attacked by djinn, despite…you know…not being of interest anymore. And I thought…who would want to kill a harmless girl for no reason? And then I thought, maybe the Ifrit are out for revenge again.”  
“The Ifrit? What makes you think that?”  
Philippa could hear someone in the background ask: “Did someone say the Ifrit? What about the Ifrit?” to which Nimrod replied “Shush, you, I’m on the phone.” It wasn’t Mr. Groanin’s voice. Who was there with Uncle Nimrod?  
“Well, I got saved from the ambushers by Rudyard Teer. I know it sounds weird. But that’s how it was. Somehow, Rudyard was able to break out of his jade prison. And where Rudyard is, Iblis usually isn’t far.”  
“Yes, dear, I know about that too. Both Rudyard and Iblis are free, actually. But I can assure you that they had nothing to do with the people attacking you, and you have nothing to fear from them.”  
“Are you sure?” Philippa asked, straining her ears to hear what was going on in her uncle’s house. Sure enough, the voice from before talked again: “Hey, what’s going on, did he just – oh, oops, I knocked a thing over”, accompanied by a crash. Also, even further in the background, the voice of a young girl was singing: "These boots are made for walking, and that’s just what they’ll do, one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you…"  
Then the singing stopped and someone shouted: “Are you totally out of it now? That’s a priceless Ming vase! Or rather, it was a priceless Ming vase, I say was!” Yep, that was definitely Groanin.  
“Absolutely sure, dear” Nimrod said over the commotion. “Oh, please excuse me for a second – Groanin, calm down, it’s just a vase – and a pretty hideous one at that – it belonged to my mother… I’m sorry, Phil, you were saying?”  
“Uncle Nimrod, really, you seem to know a lot about this already. Nothing I told you was actually news to you, was it? I think you owe me an explanation. I mean, I almost died! One of them had a knife pointed at me!”  
Uncle Nimrod sighed. “Yes, Phil, and I’m sorry for that. But, you see, it’s safer for you to not know too much.”  
“Yeah, that’s what Rudyard said too. And you know what? That’s bullshit. I know nothing right now, nothing and still they found me, they all found me. First the mystery djinn, then the sons of Iblis. All of them! You know, you might as well fill me in.”  
Uncle Nimrod sighed again. “You…well, if you put it that way…but the more you know of this, the more endangered you are. Also, we can’t discuss this on the phone, and I can’t come visit you either. Business has me stuck here, I’m afraid. You and John would have to come to London, but…you’d be in great danger there…”  
“I’m also in danger here, right? These guys could come back. And just because I lost my powers doesn’t mean I can’t handle a little danger.”  
“Alright, fine, you convinced me” Nimrod answered after a brief pause. “I think you should come to London at your convenience…”  
“That’s easy. Winter break is starting next week. If mom and dad have nothing against it, we could be with you by Thursday.”  
“Thursday? That’s alright…that’s fine. But, when you get here…”  
“Yes?”  
“Oh nothing…nothing. Just…you will find that a few things have…changed. No need to worry, there is absolutely nothing that can harm you here…just, you know, some things are different now, and I must ask you to be prepared and not let anything new you may find worry…or scare you.”  
Philippa hung up the phone feeling even more puzzled than before.

“Hey John, listen.”  
John looked up from the video game he was playing. “Huh? What’s up, Phil?”  
Philippa sat down on John’s couch and started telling him everything she had just heard from Uncle Nimrod, ending with her intent to go to London in the break.  
“Are you coming, too?” she asked at last.  
John huffed. “I don’t know, Phil. All that stuff about Iblis and Rudyard being back sure sounds worrying, but there’s not much we can do, right? Also, Uncle Nimrod sounded like he could handle it. I mean, I’d love to go and meet him and Groanin again, but…”  
“Yes?”  
“Vi’s parents are taking her to the Hamptons over Christmas and she asked me if I wanted to come. And, you know, I kind of already promised her I would.”  
“Really? And mom said yes to that?”  
“Uh-huh. She says we’re old enough to not have to spend Christmas at home every year. So, I guess she’s letting you go to London, too.”  
“If you say so. I’ll ask her after dinner.”  
Philippa smiled, but it was a bit of a sad smile. It would feel weird going to London without her brother. They had always gone on their adventures together. But, well, this wasn’t exactly an adventure, was it? She just wanted to meet her uncle so he could explain to her why she had been attacked. After that, she might well go home again. She would not get involved with anything dangerous. No, of course not. Also, now that she thought about it, she had missed Uncle Nimrod. Terribly. She wondered what he was up to.

“So, you want to visit Nimrod, dear? Any special reason to?”  
Of course Layla Gaunt was a bit wary whenever her little brother was mentioned. After all, he used to get her kids into horrible danger repeatedly, the last time even resulting in the loss of her precious babies’ djinn powers. Now Layla had, ever since she had met her husband Edward, wished for a perfectly normal, happy family life, but that didn’t mean that she was glad about her kids losing an integral part of themselves. Layla herself still had her powers, even though she had vowed not to use them anymore.  
“I just noticed that we didn’t visit him for a long time, mom” Philippa explained. “And I guess I feel a bit bad about that. Also, it’s a bit of a pity…I mean, he’ll be spending Christmas all alone, right? He’s bound to be lonely.”  
John, who was sitting around nearby, raised his eyebrows, but he didn’t tell on his sister. Meanwhile, Layla smiled, proud of her daughter’s kind heart. “I guess you say a true thing, Phil. Nimrod is a creature of solitude. He’s been alone for a long, long time…but I’m sure he’ll be happy to have you with him.” She looked down at the dishes she and Philippa had been washing and added a thoughtful “Someone should take care of him…”  
“What do you mean, mom?”  
Layla sighed. “I’ve been thinking…I always thought it was a pity that Nimrod never found someone. Someone who lasted, that is. There was your aunt Alexandra, and it looked great between them, but then the poor dear had that…tragic accident. Apart from her, Nimrod never showed any interest in finding a partner…and now he’s getting older and his powers grow weaker and there’s no one there. I really wish he would have, you know…at least tried to stay with Alexandra. She was a good friend of mine.”   
“When we met her, she couldn’t even remember your name” John threw in. “She thought it was Imelda for some reason.”  
“John!” Philippa hissed.  
“What?!”  
“That was not a very…sensitive thing to say.”  
“Oh. Sorry.”  
“It’s okay, John” their mother said and smiled, but Philippa would have bet that it was the same sad smile that she had smiled earlier, the one that knew, as time passed on, that friendships faded away.

She phoned her uncle and confirmed her coming on Thursday. The only thing left to do now was to book a flight to London, pack her things and wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, looks like Philippa is going to London. Whatever will she find at Nimrod’s house? And far more important and mysterious is the question: Will Nimrod ever find a person to stay with?! Bawww! We just don't know!


End file.
